almost 4 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Hey folks,

Last week, we set in motion our plans to deploy the Summer Update for Battlefield V. 

We recognize that there are more important conversations taking place in the world today, so you haven’t seen us publish promotional material around the update this week, similar to how we have in the past on Battlefield V. 

We’re otherwise encouraging that we all take notice of what’s happening in the United States, as well as other places around the world, and ask how we can all do more, as we must do more.

Yesterday, we at EA committed ourselves to education and driving meaningful change through actions. This is a long-term commitment that you can read more about here.

Racism should not exist in our society. We stand with all of our African-American / Black colleagues and partners, families and friends, and everyone around the world who is ready to see it end.

Freeman
Battlefield Community Manager
Twitter: @PartWelsh

----

📸 Al Marj Encampment

Battlefield V - Summer Update

Today we’re informing you here of what to expect when the Summer Update goes live tomorrow morning.

It’s a content-heavy update that adds two new maps, nine new weapons, six new vehicles, five new gadgets, and three new types of grenades.

The first of the two maps is the all-new Al Marj Encampment. Set in Libya, this is an infantry-only map, where you can expect both close-quarter fights and ranged combat depending on where you are on the battlefield. It’s 64 players on Conquest and Breakthrough, with additional configurations available on Squad Conquest and Team Deathmatch.

The second map is a redesigned and expanded Provence. The play area has been extended to include the farm land, and areas around the outskirts of town, bringing tanks into this battlefield on 64-player Conquest, and Breakthrough.

Both of these maps feature the U.S. and German armies as the two playable factions, with additional changes having also been made to Al Sundan, Twisted Steel and Panzerstorm. Twisted Steel and Panzerstorm will continue to operate as UK and German factions on Grand Operations and won’t be adjusted in this mode.

To further support these faction changes, new vehicles have been added to the U.S. faction, and we’ve increased the number of U.S. soldier characters by 14, with 2 additional soldier characters also being added to Japan.

In the full Update Notes below, I’ve listed out all of the new weapons, gadgets, and grenades being added in this update. Players who download and login to Battlefield V throughout the next few weeks will receive these items as login rewards, which you’ll be able to accept from the Armory, and equip via the Company. Later in June, these items will revert to the Company for purchase with Company Coin, for anyone who wasn’t able to login and claim the items during this time.

The update goes live tomorrow morning across all platforms starting at 07:00 UTC and I’ll keep you updated via the usual channels on its rollout.

Maps & Modes

New Maps:

  • Al Marj Encampment (Conquest, Breakthrough, TDM, Squad Conquest).
  • Provence (Conquest, Breakthrough, TDM, Squad Conquest).

Additional Changes:

  • Aerodrome - Removed the MG turret that was placed below the ground at the edge of the map.
  • Aerodrome - Removed the stationary weapon fortification that was placed into the ground near Sector F.
  • Al Sundan - All standard modes now feature U.S. vs. Germany. We presently have a known issue with incorrect Voice Over being played during rounds of Frontlines which we intend to solve in a later update.
  • Marita - Fixed a hole in the wall by Zervos Farm which could be exploited.
  • Panzerstorm - All standard modes now feature U.S. vs. Germany (except Grand Operations).
  • Panzerstorm - German Army is now set as the defending force.
  • Twisted Steel - All standard modes now feature U.S. vs. Germany (except Grand Operations).
  • Twisted Steel - Outpost - Fixed the floating barrels and barbed wire near Radio Tower A.
  • Twisted Steel - Outpost - Players should no longer be able to get stuck between the barrels and the bridge strut near tower D.
  • Underground - Fixed an exploit that could disable smoke effects.
  • Combined Arms - Fixed the missing tab on the end of round screen.
  • Firestorm - Players will no longer enter a bleed out state when playing solo mode.
  • Practice Range - Added the missing Panzerbüchse 39 & Boys AT Rifle bi-pod when using them on the range.

📸 Provence

Weapons & Gadgets

New Weapons:

  • Sjögren Shotgun (Support)
  • Chauchat (Support)
  • M3 Infrared (Recon)
  • K31/43 (Recon)
  • Welgun (Medic)
  • M1941 Johnson (Assault)
  • PPK/PPK Suppressed (all classes)
  • M1911 Suppressed (all classes)
  • Welrod (all classes)

New Gadgets:

  • Doppel-Schuss (Recon)
  • RMN 50 Grenade Launcher (Recon)
  • Pistol Flamethrower (Assault)
  • Shaped Charge (Support)
  • Kampfpistole (Support)

New Grenades:

  • Firecracker Grenade (all classes)
  • Demolition Grenade (all classes)
  • Type 99 Mine (all classes)

Additional Changes:

  • Add-on Grenade Launchers for the Tromboncino and M1 Garand now try to switch to the main ammo type instead of the pistol when the player runs out of ammo. If no primary weapon ammo is available, a switch will be made to the pistol as normal. We think that this will lead to a better combat flow when the player ends up in these scenarios.
  • The Breda M1935 PG’s fire switching sound can now be heard.
  • Fixed a bug where smoke grenades would sometimes detonate in different positions for different clients, or not detonate at all.
  • Unified the impact grenade's trajectory with the other frag grenades for improved consistency of grenade throws.
  • Slightly increased the time an impact grenade must travel, the amount it bounces off a surface, and detonation delay after bouncing. This won't substantially change the gameplay of the grenade, but will improve the pucker factor of having one of these thrown at you.
  • Fixed a bug with the Lunge Mine which would cause another knockback, when it had been selected again after a previous use.

Vehicles

New Vehicles:

  • A-20 bomber (U.S. Faction)
  • P-70 Night Fighter (U.S. Faction)
  • P-51D fighter plane (U.S. Faction)
  • P-51K fighter plane (U.S. Faction)
  • M8 Greyhound (U.S. Faction)
  • Puma Armored Car (German Faction)

Additional Changes:

  • Improved the transition to ragdoll when players die in a vehicle and made it so the vehicle/wreck is followed for the victim to make it a more interesting experience.
  • Fixed an issue with the Hachi that was causing it not to steer as well as intended when moving at higher speeds.
  • Smoke screen weapons on tanks and airplanes now properly block spots, and name tags.
  • Fixed a bug that would cause the vehicle UI to show an incorrect position of the cannon, if the player had used it, and then switched seats.
  • AA guns now suppress on the same level as other vehicle MGs.

Planes

  • 500lb bombs now have lowered blast damage, and increased irreparable damage to make it a two-pass kill.

BF-109 G2

  • Specialization tree changes to compete with P51K.
  • Start loadout includes spotting flares and 2x50kg bombs.
  • Engine or gun upgrade at tier 1.
  • Defensive options or finned barrels at tier 2.
  • Ground attack options or leading edge for tier 3.
  • Finally some less critical upgrades for tier 4.

BF-109 G6

  • Specialization tree changes to compete with P51D.
  • Start loadout includes nitrous, smoke, and 2x rockets.
  • Explosion protection or gun upgrade at tier 1.
  • Defensive options or finned barrels at tier 2.
  • Ground attack options or leading edge for tier 3.
  • Nitrous now functions in the same way as the super charger for the Pacific planes.
  • Finally some less critical upgrades for tier 4.

📸 Al Marj Encampment

Soldier

New Soldier Characters:

  • 14 New U.S. Faction Soldiers.
  • 2 New Japan Faction Soldiers.

Additional Changes:

  • Additional fixes to prevent players from getting stuck in a bleeding out state. If this does not fix the problem, we hope that it will decrease the rarity from uncommon to rare.
  • Fixed a bug that would in some cases play the wrong voice over when a soldier spots a bomber.

UI & Other

  • Fixed an issue that would cause spotted enemies to not show on the mini-map if the player walked into their own smoke.
  • Added the missing descriptions for the Calliope and Hachi in the statistics tab.

Player feedback

As always, we value your input, and we want you to reach out to us with feedback. For general feedback, please use our Battlefield V section on the Battlefield forums or join us on the Battlefield V subreddit and Discord.

Should you encounter any issues or bugs we recommend that you report them on our Battlefield V – Answers HQ forum.

You can also reach out to our Battlefield Community Managers on Twitter if you have any further topics that you would like us to write about in future blog posts.

You can reach them on Twitter @PartWelsh and @Braddock512.

Update Available - Times

Known Issues - Under Investigation

  • Players may encounter an incorrect Voice Over when playing on Al Sundan - Frontlines
  • Today's Daily Orders have not generated. We're investigating this issue.
  • Challenge Assignments are currently not present and is being investigated (for reference, Challenge Assignments are randomly generated Assignments that award CC. We presently do not believe that there are any new issues relating to progression based Assignments).
External link →
almost 4 years ago - /u/Braddock512 - Direct link

Originally posted by kidmenot

u/GIVE_CHAUCHAT

IT HAS HAPPENED

I PM’d him before the notes went live. ;)

almost 4 years ago - /u/Braddock512 - Direct link

Originally posted by GeratSeccuss

So you don't plan to add more options ( like increased bullet damage ) to community servers ?

More Community Game features are coming in a later update.

almost 4 years ago - /u/Braddock512 - Direct link

Originally posted by freak-me-baby

Thanks for the fine updates, but what about the community games and anti cheat?

I thought these would be one of the major changes in this release, because without any changes to anti cheat and community games this game will soon be dead :-(

Work continues on anti-cheat. In our last blog (Future of Battlefield V), we indicated that we will have a Community Games update later. That’s still happening.

almost 4 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by TheRealSpatizm

Any new cosmetics?

Yep. We haven't historically listed these in Update Notes. We would have featured some of them in the promotional material, but we'll show these off at a later time.

almost 4 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by kidmenot

Looks good.

I have one question: are you guys going to enable the team balancer? Freeman explained that it was behind a killswitch, any idea when you are going to make it available?

We did an initial test on this (on the public client, but on a hidden server) - it didn't play out as expected.

We'll do similar tests when 7.0 launches, but the current belief is that there's an extra fix we need to deploy in a planned smaller update that may possibly release later this month.

Shortest answer - yes, still on the plans and I'll open up more on this as soon as is appropriate.

almost 4 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by Lock3down221

Am I seeing this right? Twisted steel and Panzerstorm will now be US vs Germany?

Correct - except in Grand Operations where we sustain the current setup.

almost 4 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by junkerz88

u/Braddock512 u/PartWelsh thank you for the notes! Any chance the trailer still drops today as well? Or is that still being held back, considering the events happening in the US

It won't release today and I'm not in a position to set any expectation around when, or even if, it may ever release.

almost 4 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by Lock3down221

Al Sundan has been removed from the rotation due to VO issue. Here we go again.

I can appreciate the meme - I have all confidence that it'll be back in our next update. The issue wasn't presenting any stability issues, it was just a matter of us hearing completely the wrong set of VO and how it would be very misleading in the gameplay. The fix is simple and already tested its just a matter of integrating it into the next release.

As an update - we're reviewing this with the team and asking if we're happy to leave it in. The VO bug is odd, but not game breaking. I'll let you know where we land.

almost 4 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by veekay45

Sounds nice, more like 'scrambling all that has been created so far into one update' though.

Still no Ju-52 for the German paratroopers in Operations though?

Making Germany defend on Panzerstorm means no more grand Tiger tank pushes, which is sad.

Also Twisted Steel and Panzerstorm now alternating between UK/US is kind of weird, which battles are those supposed to be exactly? Full fiction at this point?

Al-Marj being infantry only is a bummer, but at least provence can be cool with tanks.

Also, still no sign of a single sniper rifle for American recons (Springfield) or single Japanese assault weapon?

For clarity - Twisted Steel and Panzerstorm (and later Al Sundan) will not Alternate, they're US vs. Germany maps following the launch of the update. The only time you'll see it different is during Grand Operations where the maps will remain as they are today.

almost 4 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by 7IamEnder

Quick question, will the US faction be separated for the Pacific and Europe? The Marine Core and Army had very different aesthetics, so it would be nice for them to be separated.

Would make having outfits for each more convenient for fashion folks.

Also mildly disappointed we won’t be seeing the Springfield in game.

Edit: Added 2nd paragraph

They won't be separated, but appropriate new customisation options will help to let players switch up their outfits, along with a lot more new soldiers (allowing for folks top more easily swap their entire loadout by adjusting which soldier is used)

almost 4 years ago - /u/Braddock512 - Direct link

Originally posted by Dogg_Speed

Hey Braddock, thanks for all you do and put up with. Any chance of a more accessible and effective way to report teamers in Firestorm solos on console? I know the game mode won’t get much more love as things wind down, but there’s a small core of us that would really appreciate a more effective method than just trying to shame them with private messages, lol. Cheers.

Lemme see what we can do. Keep me on it - so remind me in a week if you haven’t heard back.

almost 4 years ago - /u/Braddock512 - Direct link

Originally posted by GETMEMEDONLOL

u/Braddock512 do you have an update about the night maps being included for the Community Games update? Do you also have an update regarding AA tweaks?

I don’t have an update on either of those yet. Still pushing on it.

almost 4 years ago - /u/Braddock512 - Direct link

Originally posted by Huzzahtheredcoat

I think we should see if we can get the Chauchat added to BF 6! 🤪

@ u/braddock512 I'll even revive the Dic_Pic account! First post is Dick Tracy!

Dick Van Dyke, Dick Grayson (Robin), etc.

almost 4 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by GlintSteel

u/PartWelsh is it still possible we get ju-52 :( ... i got mixed feeling with this update.

It's a No. If it ever changes, I'll say, but the expectation here is that it won't release.

almost 4 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by MRBeanJoga

Any chance for the 1917 Enfield and the Panzerschrek?

The 1917 doesnt offer anything unqiue in terms of gameplay that we dont already have. It's a great weapon, but when we looked at what we could deliver and the time available to us we prioritised things that would help to mix the gameplay up vs. giving you more of something you have.

Similar story for the Panzerschrek.

Both great, but we focused on adding more unique content where possible.

almost 4 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by zwometer

when is the next TOW starting?

Weekly Missions return tomorrow.

almost 4 years ago - /u/PartWelsh - Direct link

Originally posted by Essigucha

This sounds great, and really excited for all the new content. Any chance we will see any change to way assignments are set up. A way to change assignments without having to leave the match your in, or sort of list tree for class assignments, gun assignments, etc. Instead of just one long list. I like playing to try to achieve something specific, but sometimes a certain class is just not working for you when maps change and it’s a waste of time to leave figure out how you want to approach accomplish the tasks. Thanks

At this stage it won't change, but has served as a lesson for the future.

almost 4 years ago - /u/Braddock512 - Direct link

Originally posted by JoshTonkin

u/Braddock512 u/PartWelsh any info on the (some sort of) team balance that was mentioned to be added?

almost 4 years ago - /u/Braddock512 - Direct link

Originally posted by strategic_thinking

well shit, i said in a previous comment that if the chauchat was added i’d come back to get full gold for it so i guess it’s time to redownload

I remember. ;)

almost 4 years ago - /u/Braddock512 - Direct link

Originally posted by Mattnifico

u/Braddock512 idk if this is the right spot to do this, but my canadian friend is DYING to play this new update and would love a code for the game

Platform?

almost 4 years ago - /u/Braddock512 - Direct link

Originally posted by Koala_Confused

Hi u/Braddock512 You previously asked for my platform for BF1 and I have been trying to get you unsuccessfully.

I am ok if there isn’t any for me because it is definitely your decision to make. Just wanted at least a response cause I am seeing you replying others. I have been polite and appreciative in all my replies so I am not sure if I have been ignored and if so why.

Thank you.

I’m sorry of I missed you message. I’ll check the history and send you a code next week.

almost 4 years ago - /u/Braddock512 - Direct link

Originally posted by Dogg_Speed

Hi Braddock,

Just following up on your reply last week. For a bit more context (which you may already be aware of), much of the frustration on this issue comes from the confusing and tedious cheater reporting process combined with frustration with the inefficacy of the reporting system (see e.g. the BFV forums or r/firestorm).

From my personal experience on PS4, this is doubly frustrating given the absence of the Origin system and when the official EA instructions for reporting cheating players (referring to this) makes reference to navigating through the scoreboard (which does not display other players' names in Firestorm) to select a 'Report Player' option that does not exist (on PS4 you are only able to message and 'Block' the player, which does not prevent you from entering future games with them).

This is of course especially frustrating given how rampant the teaming problem is in solos, where you tend to see the same players/squads teaming over and over accruing hundreds of wins, clearly without being punished, and often blatantly running the same platoon tag. In my view, some option to report through a scoreboard (such as could be done to report offensive names in-game in BF1) would be much less cumbersome, and you'd think the reports would be easy to verify by looking at the offending players' in-game behaviour and seeing how often their final kills in solo rounds are each other.

I'm sure the solution to this problem is much more complicated and requires a degree of technological wizardry beyond the simple suggestions of the Firestorm community. That being said, there's clearly a small core of Firestorm fans that will likely continue to play this mode of BFV (swearing that it is one of the best BR iterations on the market despite the low player base) even as the development of new content comes to an end. I know we'd all appreciate some solution to this one glaring issue currently plaguing the solo Firestorm experience.

Cheers.

Absolutely. The in-game reporting process for cheating/abuse doesn't work for Firestorm due to the fact that there's no leaderboard for Firestorm.
And the alternative way to report - create a ticket at EA Help that gets escalated to the TOS team then to the anti-cheat team - it's too clunky, not intuitive, and honestly, most folks can't be bothered by it.

I do agree that teaming up in a solo mode to imbalance the match against players that are playing legit is, at best, griefing (TOS violation). At worst, it's outright cheating. I've hit up Sean, our Anti-Cheat Dev, on the best way to address this - via reporting and taking action. I'm waiting for a reply, then will share with you all what the team tells me.

almost 4 years ago - /u/Braddock512 - Direct link

Originally posted by GETMEMEDONLOL

Hi Braddock, since a week has gone by I was wondering if you have any updates from the Dev Team lately?

RE: Night maps, it doesn't look like they will be available, but Freeman and I are seeing what options would be available (we're also talking about extreme weather options).

RE: AA tweaks - I haven't heard anything regarding tweaks, but the team is looking towards the next update and I'll see if there's any updates/tweaks/adjustments. I did highlight this in my community report and in a couple of our calls with various teams.

almost 4 years ago - /u/Braddock512 - Direct link

Originally posted by Circle_Dot

there's no leaderboard for Firestorm.

What does this mean? There is nobody monitoring Firestorm reports?

I'm referring to the in-game leaderboard in matches that is available with MP games. As noted above by another player, this isn't visible in Firestorm. Therefore, the normal process of reporting someone in-game doesn't work so the alternate process is required, which isn't a great option.